Portrait Photography

January 19, 2026

David LaChapelle to Show Largest Retrospective of Decades-Long Career in the U.S. [Interview]

It might be easier to list the stars that David LaChapelle hasn’t worked with than with those that he has. Throughout his decades-long career, the photographer has radically redefined the portrait genre, transforming cultural icons such as Muhammad Ali, Jackie Chan, Sofia Coppola, Lady Gaga, and Dolly Parton into the most whimsical, expressive versions of themselves. In other words, imagination is permitted to run wild with LaChapelle.

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January 8, 2026

Meet the Winners of the National Portrait Gallery’s 2025 Teen Portrait Competition

Every three years, the National Portrait Gallery hosts a major photography competition, designed not for adults but for teenagers. Aptly named the Teen Portrait Competition, the initiative invites U.S.-based students between the ages of 13 and 17 to showcase their photographic portraits, celebrating young and emerging talent across the country and its territories.

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November 28, 2025

Annie Leibovitz’s ‘Women’ Book Is a Daring Quest Into the Heart of Contemporary Womanhood

For Annie Leibovitz, there is perhaps no more fruitful of a subject than women. “Women are a work in progress,” the photographer remarked in a 2016 interview with the New York Times. “To my dying day, I’ll be doing these photographs.” If the work of photographing women is forever ongoing, then Phaidon’s reprint of her 1999 classic, Women, is an ambitious continuation of that mission.

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September 24, 2025

Intimate Portraits of the Nenets Capture the Faces of Indigenous People in the Russian Arctic

In 2022, Natasha Yankelevich traveled to Yamal for the first time. Nestled in northwest Siberia, the region is remote, icy, and has been “historically cut off from the rest of Russia by endless swamps,” per the Moscow-based photographer. It also happens to be home to the Nenets, a Samoyedic ethnic group native to the Russian Arctic.

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My Modern Met

Celebrating creativity and promoting a positive culture by spotlighting the best sides of humanity—from the lighthearted and fun to the thought-provoking and enlightening.